Managing a sales team is one of the most challenging roles in business. You’re balancing leadership, coaching, performance metrics, and—let’s be honest—some tough conversations with your team.
In our most recent leadership session with our clients, we focused on one of the most overlooked yet critical elements of sales management: setting clear expectations with your team, your customers, and even yourself.
Expectations Are Everything: Set Them Early and Reinforce Them.
A sales team without clear expectations is like a sports team without a playbook. You might have talented players, but if no one knows the game plan, you’re going to struggle to win. One of the biggest takeaways from our discussion was that expectations should never be assumed—they must be explicitly stated and reinforced. This applies to:
- Your team: Are your salespeople clear on what “fully prepared” for a sales call actually means?
- Your customers: Do your buyers know what to expect in every stage of their journey with you?
- Yourself: Are you holding yourself accountable to leading with clarity and consistency?
We asked sales managers to define what “fully prepared” means in their organization. Some teams had a checklist; others had only a vague idea. If your team can’t answer that question without debate, it’s time to get specific. Preparation should not be subjective. It should be a measurable standard that everyone aligns on.
Stop Avoiding Tough Conversations: They’re the Key to Growth.
One sales leader in our session shared a challenging conversation he had with a rep who was consistently underperforming. His instinct was to coach with encouragement, but when he started asking harder questions like “Why do you think this deal stalled?” and “What would you do differently next time?” he realized that his rep wasn’t thinking strategically about the sales process at all.
The best managers don’t just motivate; they hold their people accountable with direct, productive conversations. Tough questions drive self-awareness, and self-awareness drives improvement. If you’re not having these conversations regularly, your team isn’t growing.
Accountability is not about punishment. It’s about setting people up for success. If a salesperson isn’t meeting expectations, they should know exactly where they’re falling short and what they need to do to improve.
Sales Call Preparation Is Non-Negotiable, And It’s Your Job to Enforce It.
We talked a lot about pre-call planning and why so many sales teams struggle with it. The reality is that many reps think they’re prepared when they’re really just showing up with surface-level research.
True preparation means:
- Understanding the prospect’s business priorities and challenges
- Having a defined up-front contract (what’s the purpose of this call, and what’s the ideal outcome?)
- Anticipating tough questions and objections before they come up
- Knowing what questions to ask to uncover pain and qualify the opportunity
In our session, one manager shared that after implementing a structured pre-call planning process, his team’s call-to-close ratio improved dramatically. Why? Because reps were no longer winging it. They came to every conversation armed with a strategy.
Sales managers, if you don’t reinforce pre-call planning, you’re signaling to your team that it doesn’t really matter. If you’re not using a structured pre-call planner, start today. (We’ve got a great tool for that. Reach out, and we’ll send it to you.)
Salespeople Need to Own Their Business; You Need to Teach Them How.
A surprising theme emerged in our session: many salespeople don’t see themselves as business owners, but they should.
We talked about how managers can shift their teams from a “salesperson” mindset to a CEO mindset. That means encouraging reps to:
- Think beyond individual transactions and focus on long-term account strategy
- Take responsibility for forecasting and pipeline management (instead of waiting for their manager to tell them where they stand)
- Engage in proactive account reviews to uncover growth opportunities
When salespeople own their business, they stop blaming external factors for missed targets and start thinking strategically. As a sales manager, your role is to coach this mindset shift, not micromanage every detail.
If You’re Not Growing as a Manager, Neither Is Your Team
This session reminded me that great sales managers don’t just oversee numbers; they shape culture, build discipline, and create environments where people succeed. If you’re not actively developing your leadership skills, you’re not giving your team the best version of yourself.
If these insights resonate with you, join us for our next Sales Manager training session. The best leaders never stop learning.
Want to talk more about how to implement these strategies in your team? Let’s connect.
